Six major league ball teams are today en route to their training headquarters, and within a few days you fans will have the greatest kind of a feast over the news which is coming from the various camps regarding the development of the players.
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The Athletics will [train] at Jacksonville, while the Brooklyns will proceed by rail to Daytona, and the Phillies to St. Petersburg, Fla.

The other teams which are traveling south today are the Chicago Cubs, who ...

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Santana has agreed to join the Blue Jays on a minor-league deal with an invite to major-league spring training. It’s the first step in either a feel-good comeback story or another stalled attempt by Santana to reclaim his MLB glory.

Santana, 35, didn’t pitch in the big leagues in 2013 and 2014, but not for lack of trying. Shoulder surgery prevented him from taking the field in 2013 with the New York Mets. He signed a one-year contract with the Baltimore Orioles last year, but tore his ...

Tabares has been on five of the Industriales’s 12 championship winning teams. He is considered one of the best postseason players in league history, and holds the record for most postseason hits. His career batting average (.308 at the moment of our conversation) will likely stay above .300 for the remainder of his career, barring a total collapse in his predicted final two seasons. He is a media and fan favorite, and a certain Hall of Famer. And ...

Former professional baseball player Jim King of Elkins died Monday in Fayetteville.

He was 82.

An outfielder, King played 11 seasons with six major-league teams. He began his major-league career in 1955 with the Chicago Cubs where he played two seasons. His first at-bat came at Wrigley Field, where he had a pinch-hit double against eventual Hall of Famer Robin Roberts.

King went on to play a year for the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants. He didn’t play in the majors in the 1959 ...

Though second baseman Daniel Murphy has been one of the Mets’ most consistent offensive performers over the past few seasons, the team has no plans to negotiate an extension with the 29-year-old during the season, reports ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin. While that wording would seem to leave open some possibility of a Spring Training extension, Rubin writes that the expectation is for New York to let Murphy walk as a free agent next offseason. ...

[During a team jogging drill, White Sox pitcher Reb] Russell repeatedly lagged behind the others and once when passing the home plate, where the manager stood the boss called: “Show some speed, Tex. Where’s your ‘pep’?”

“What do you think this is, my birthday?” was the rather sarcastic reply of the bulky athlete.

“Well, it isn’t any holiday,” came the answer from the manager. “This isn’t a vacation trip. You’re out here to work.”
...
The affair was ...

The reality is the Braves didn’t believe they could be a World Series team if they kept the team intact. To be honest, they were actually thrilled the Nationals and Miami Marlins got even better during the winter, reinforcing their belief they were not going to contend for the division title.

At the same time, you don’t bring in veterans A.J. Pierznyski, Jason Grilli, John Buck, Kelly Johnson, Jim Johnson, Alberto Callaspo, Gomes and Markakis, and expect to go out every night and ...

“I don’t blame them. If you look at my numbers last season, they weren’t great,” said Hedges, who hit .225 last season with Double-A San Antonio. “Those guys weren’t in the Texas League every day and didn’t see what wasn’t on paper, which was a lot of quality at-bats and hard-contact outs.”

He may have big-time power. His defense has big-time problems, however.

“I think he’s on a different level,” Gosewisch said. “Sometimes there’s guys in BP where you see them hit a few home runs and you might yourself try to hit some home runs to match them, but he’s on another level and it’s fun to watch. You can hear [it], [the ball] just sounds different coming off his bat. There’s a few guys in the game that have that sound, and he’s one of them. He’s got some kind of power.”

Yankees people are said to be confident A-Rod wouldn’t prevail in the expected skirmish over the $30 million, not only because of their belief that his drug missteps have rendered his marketing value nil, but also because of the phrasing in the agreement that requires that the Yankees “designate” the historic home runs as milestones. Perhaps even more important, the potential to call him to the stand under oath should he challenge their ...

Red Sox chairman Tom Werner, echoing the comments of principal owner John W. Henry the day before, also said that Lucchino’s place in the pecking order remains the same as always, calling it a “mistake” that a masthead on the team’s website listed Gordon above Lucchino. The team’s media guide will list the top three names as unchanged, even though FSG is the parent company of the Red Sox and Gordon is the second-biggest shareholder in the team, behind ...

It sounds like trouble and Josh Hamilton might have found each other again.

The Los Angeles Angels acknowledged Wednesday that their injured outfielder has been summoned to meet with MLB officials at the league office in New York City. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports Hamilton’s trip is regarding a “disciplinary issue.”...

New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira is now gluten free, sugar free and dairy free, which he hopes will keep him injury free.
Teixeira’s belief in his new diet and renewed weightlifting program makes him believe that he can stay fully healthy for the first time since 2011. If he does, Teixeira thinks he can be a 30-homer and 100-RBI player again.

...Teixeira, who turns 35 in April, hasn’t played more than 123 games since that 2011 season but thinks that with his new diet he will cut ...

Mike Jirschele has been a third-base coach going on 20 years. In that time, he has made thousands of decisions about sending guys, holding guys, and obviously not all of them turned out well.

But of all of those moments — Jirschele has decided to send guys or not as many times as most of us have decided to stop for gas or not — the Gordon play will never be one he’ll second-guess or regret.

As a way to simplify it, he asks what people would’ve thought had that been a sacrifice fly ...

After seven seasons in professional television, NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation” has retired. Boasting a career average that would make even Ted Williams envious, the show’s final outing aired on Tuesday night. MLB fans everywhere should be a little sorry to see it go, because no sitcom on television was as big a baseball fan as “Parks and Rec.”

He’s not officially retired, but Jose Molina is 39 years old, was released by the Rays, and is sidelined following knee surgery. And now he’s joined the Cardinals as a special guest instructor for spring training.

I call “bullshit”. Money is the reason the Red Sox ownership bought into its AAA franchise. That’s what the plan to move the team to Providence is about. It’s about putting in luxury boxes, increased concessions, and taking advantage of a desired *free* grant of land in Providence.

We knew that there was a distinct possibility of a sale, and there were no guarantees as to where that sale might go or who might acquire the team,” explained Red Sox team president Larry Lucchino. “So almost as a ...